Design Tips: Vector Vs. Raster

Graphic Design can be a fickle thing. One minute you are designing an awesome logo, right, for business cards. Then, the client loves it so much that they want to put it on a billboard! Awesome right? Well, it could go both ways. Did you create it in Photoshop, or Illustrator? (Photoshop can do some vector, but I'm generalizing here.) 
Chances are, if you created it in Photoshop, it isn't going to work and you are going to have to start alllllll over. Unless of course you started working at the size of the billboard. (Quick tip: Always, always easier to design larger and scale down than the other way!)
If you created it in Illustrator, you are good to go!
But why does it matter?
The difference is in two words: Raster and Vector.
Basically, these are both ways of how your artwork is created. 
The top picture on my above collage is Raster. You may remember it from my Fall Palette post. Raster is a grid of colors that make up the pieces of your artwork. All those squares of color make up larger spots of color and so on. These squares make up your DPI, or PPI. In Raster, the DPI is very important because that is how many squares you have in a given inch. (DPI = Dots Per Inch, also called PPI, or points per inch). The more squares, the more seamless the transition from color to color, which makes the image look sharp. The problem with this system is that if you create small artwork and then need to resize it, instead of have a bunch of tiny boxes with almost seamless color, you are just enlarging the boxes, making the once seamless color look boxy and pixelated. Make sense?
I hope so. That took a lot of thought to explain.
Vector is a little bit easier. Vector is basically created with mathematical equations. In the above picture, I show the points on the lines. Illustrator (or other Vector program) creates your artwork based on the equation of the distance between those two lines. When you enlarge your artwork that is vector, the equation is just multiplied exponentially, depending on how you scale it. Vector artwork can be rasterized, also, and has to be for some applications, but it is hard to vectorize rasterized artwork. It, in theory, has to be recreated.  If that makes sense.
Now, I'm not saying to never use raster artwork, or to kill Photoshop. None of that. (I love Photoshop!) I'm just saying it has its place in certain applications. As does Illustrator.
Photos will not be vector. They could, but the files would be too massive for most computers. And it you would basically have to recreate it. 
And also, a lot of effects in Photoshop aren't available in Illustrator. Vector just can't create some of the same effects with the equations and what not. 
My advice to you is for applications like logo design: Create a vector logo. Or have one made for you, in either .EPS or .AI. A good designer should have no problem with that. And once you have that, if you need edits made in Photoshop, you can do so. But keep your vector file.
You may need it. 
But, chances are that if you are creating something for yourself, and you're not a graphic designer by trade, you probably won't ever see Illustrator. That's fine. A lot of designers go their whole lives without touching Illustrator. I am just pretty much a Illustrator fan girl. But if this situation sounds like you, my advice is to always create larger than what you need. Scale down. Always. If you are making your business card, I would say design at least a few times larger. Maybe if your business grows you will need a banner. And then that enlarged logo will be helpful.
I hope this helps. I hope I explained everything okay. As always, feel free to contact me, or leave comments and I will always get back to you!

Design Tips: The Shape Builder Tool

So I am going to try something a bit different today. I am left aligned! It looks different from over here.
I kid, I kid.
What have I got in store for you today?

A TUTORIAL!

Well, really, a tip, if you will. The Shape Builder Tool in Illustrator. It's a really great tool that is new to CS5. Think of it as Pathfinder's new, cute, little brother.
Not that Pathfinder doesn't have its uses, but don't get me started on that.
It could get ugly.

Getting down to business.

Say you have two boxes, like the ones above. And you want to join them.

What are you to do?

The shape builder tool to the rescue! You just select the shapes you want to join, as shown above, and use the shape builder tool.

And, using the tool, drag across the shapes to create the shape you want. The shapes that are going to join will turn a dark grey. The line show is the line I used to create the shape in the next picture. That actually shows. So it's pretty helpful.

And, like magic, you now have one congruent shape! Once you get the hang of it, it only takes about five seconds. Honest.

I hope this helps! I love posting these little tips! If you ever want to learn anything special, leave a comment or contact me.

Christmas Color Inspiration

Last year was mine and Dakota's first Christmas living together. So, naturally, we had to decorate. Well, I needed to. Dakota probably couldn't have cared less.    I really wanted to keep things classic, in terms of color. I love when things match. It's kind of an OCD thing I have. I think its part of what makes me a great designer. But its kind of an issue as well, because I can't break out of that box sometimes.    But that's a story for a different day.   Today is time for a color palette! All about Christmas! This one is a little similar to the Fall Palette I showed a while back. I think the main idea for Fall and Christmas is warm, inviting colors.    I just love classic colors for Christmas. Do you stay classic or do you go for the new aqua blues and other colors I've been seeing lately?   Let me know in the comments!   Enjoy!    

Tree Image Source

Design Tip: Adobe Kuler for Color Palettes!

I love color. I love color palettes. It is all just so organized and beautiful. And when I discovered Kuler, I fell in love. Kuler (pronounced "cooler", btw) is a color palette tool. It's pretty stinkin' awesome. You can do things like shade palettes..

Or do something different and do a compound palette..

Or you can even upload a picture and create a color palette from the image, like this fall themed one below:

(Image Source) I thought this would be a handy tip for all of you, designers and non designers included! Especially for blog design! Also, Kuler has an extension for InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Want to learn more? Contact me or Send me a tweet :) P.S. I was not compensated for this post. I just love Kuler and thought you would too!

Fall Color Inspiration

I said the other day how I really loved sharing some of my inspiration with you. Well, I'm at it again! This time, its for Fall. I know, I know. I am a little behind. But it's still fall. It's still fall until snow is on the ground. Which has already happened for some of you poor souls. I love the cold, but I don't think I could handle the snow. You are brave. Very, very brave. My point is, it is still technically fall. Mother nature sometimes forgets that. :) Enjoy! 

Pumpkin image source

Design Tips : Project Life Tutorial

Happy Saturday, Loves!
I don't know about you, but I have had a very lazy day so far.  Dakota left for work at 8:30, and since then, I have laid in bed watching Netflix and drifting in and out of sleep.
But this post was calling to me, ever since I dicussed it with Mariely. She is a crafty blogger, and asked the rest of us attending Online Blogcon if we did scrapbooking or crafts. I mentioned to Mariely that I have done Project Life, but only on Photoshop.  And she wanted to know how I did that. So this week, I am going to teach you how to create your own Project Life pages in Photoshop! (Bear with me, I took a lot of screenshots!)
Tutorial after the jump!

Photoshop Tip : Image Processor

Wow, I am actually keeping up with the promise I made last week about tips every Saturday! I'm a little late, but here is my tip for you for today! It is all about Photoshop today, and the Image Processor tool. This is a tool I found completely by accident, but once you use it, you won't go back! Please note that I am using Photoshop CS5, so  I don't know what this will look like on other versions. The idea behind this is that when I edit photos, I tend to work on a lot at one time. And then when Dakota kicks me off his computer its time to get off the computer,  I wanted a way to process the files quickly.
Rather than save them all as PSDs and as JPEG, and resize them to post to Facebook.  Or even here. That takes..forever. 
This handy little tool will help you save and resize in one step! To get started, have some files open in Photoshop that you want to save PSDs of and resized JPEG:

Then, go to File > Scripts > Image Processor and click:

When the window is open, here are the options you have and the ones I typically use selected:

Except that I usually resize Facebook to 1000 px.  That probably looks completely horrible, but I do it anyway.
Explanation: 
Step 1) I use open images because my file system isn't very organized, and I don't want to accidentally re-size the wrong pictures. If you are more organized than me, go right ahead and do whole folders.
Step 2) I save in the same location because it makes these little organized folders that I love so much, and it helps me be more organized. (See Step #1)

Step 3) This is why I use this tool exclusively, rather than actions. You can save your files as multiple options at the same time! I typically do JPEG and PSD. Because I like having the backup of the PSD. Usually I will use the Image Processor twice so that I can have a resized JPEG and a full res JPEG.
Because I love full res. :)
Step 4: Preferences. I don't usually mess with this too much, except usually I do put in my copyright info. That embeds that info into the file, so when I upload to Facebook, it puts it right in the description box!
I don't usually like to run actions off of this step, because then I don't get to mess with what they look like until after they are saved. But some actions work, like Matte Me! That one doesn't require much tweaking, and looks good on almost any photo.
Click "OK" and Photoshop will work very hard saving and resizing your work. So you don't have to!
I hope this helps!
Use my contact page to ask about Photoshop or Illustrator or any other program, and I will do my best to answer here on the blog for ya!

Illustrator Tip: Recolor Artwork

So I just got the most  brillaint idea! For the next few weeks here at my little corner of the blogosphere, I will be posting an Illustrator tip every Saturday morning! 
You can request a tip or ask me questions on my contact page. 
Today's tip is about a nifty tool that I am almost embarassed how long it took for me to notice this tool and realize its full potential.
The Recolor Artwork Tool.